When I was in my early teens, I found an art and sport that totally changed my life. Through taekwondo, I began to see myself as an athlete, and found love and an unbelievable aliveness through training so hard I could barely walk the next day.

I remember well that pain being a sort of badge of honor, like we had all pushed it so hard and suffered together. Another badge of honor, weird as it feels to write it now, was ibuprofen. As in, I felt like a real adult athlete needing to pop an NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) multiple times throughout the day for knee pain.

Fortunately for me, that phase passed pretty quickly (as I started to get a little smarter and question why I had knee pain in the first place; ultimately, my technique got better and that helped 95%). And good thing, too. I’m just starting in on this research, and will keep you posted, but for now: there’s a fair amount of research out there on anti-inflammatories and tissue health.